TA Excellence Award

The Excellence Award for Teaching Assistants emphasizes the importance that the TLSS places on teaching.

• Recognize excellence and the improvement of the students’ academic experience.
• Value the role played by TAs by improving the interactions with students.
• Give students who chose to become TAs an opportunity for a financial boost and an additional accomplishment to distinguish their resumes.

Appointment

The TLSS is seeking nomination for three awards. Successful candidates will each receive a $500 award. The TLSS will present the awards during a special event held at the end of April. Recipients will have the opportunity to make a brief presentation (maximum of 15 minutes each) on their work as teaching assistants and how this work plays an important role in student learning. If they wish, recipients will also be invited to participate in the Teaching Assistant Orientation Day held by the TLSS in September and January of each year. Participation may take different forms (facilitator or co-facilitator of a workshop, a panelist, a guest speaker, etc.) depending on the interests of the individual.

Eligibility criteria

The applicant must:

• Be a Teaching Assistant at the University of Ottawa;
• Have accumulated at least 250 hours of teaching assistantships before the nomination deadline;
• Still be enrolled at the University of Ottawa at the time of the award presentation; and
• Submit, in a timely fashion, the documents associated with the nomination process.

Application procedure

The nomination form must be completed by a University of Ottawa instructional staff (full or part-time professor, coordinator, etc.) or a Dean and be accompanied by two additional comments of students who can attest to the assistant’s work. The assistant, for whom a nomination form will have been completed by an instructional staff, must also complete a form describing their experiences as a teaching assistant and any Teaching Assistant related training they may have participated in.

Please note that teaching assistants can be nominated more than once over the years.

• Nomination deadline: March 15, 2025 at 4 p.m. (Eastern Daylight Time)

• A ceremony to honour award recipients will take place at the end of April 2025 (date to be confirmed).

• Terms of reference

• Instructions for preparing a nomination package (coming in January 2025)

• Link to the Nomination Form (to be completed by a University of Ottawa instructional staff - coming in January 2025)

• Link to the Descriptive Form (to be completed by the nominated teaching assistant - coming in January 2025)

For additional information, please contact the TLSS at saea-tlss@uOttawa.ca or by phone at 613-562-5300.